ICE’s Controversial Foreign Student Employment Programs Not Protecting U.S. Workers
Despite regulatory requirement, labor protection provisions in STEM OPT program are ignored
By Jon Feere on September 15, 2024
A controversial foreign labor program created by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and managed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is failing to protect U.S. workers despite a public pledge from the government that the program would include wage protections. The program, known as the Optional Practical Training program for foreign students with degrees in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM OPT), was created through regulation as a means to assist employers in evading statutory limits on foreign labor and has exploded in growth in recent years.
It can be revealed here that ICE’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) has been misleading the American public since the creation of the program in 2016 and has conducted no wage analysis despite a regulatory requirement to do so. The harm to U.S. workers is significant and the Biden-Harris administration has chosen to allow the harm to continue. A plan initiated under the Trump administration that would have resulted in the government meeting its regulatory requirements was eliminated by the Biden-Harris administration, along with a transparency effort that listed the top employers using the program.
This report outlines the unanticipated and rapid growth in all OPT programs, details the efforts that were made to fulfill DHS’s regulatory requirements regarding wage protections, describes some of the fraud that was uncovered during this process and what it revealed, and reviews the shocking decision of SEVP to cancel a wage unit that would have fulfilled a regulatory requirement to protect U.S. workers. This report concludes that DHS has been misleading the public and offers some suggestions on how to fix the controversial programs.
https://cis.org/Report/ICEs-Controversial-Foreign-Student-Employment-Programs-Not-Protecting-US-Workers
